NPR
It's Time to Get Serious About Reducing Food Waste, Feds Say
September 16, 2015 2:16 PM ET
Allison Aubrey
Word that Americans throw away about one third of our available food has been getting around.
Now there's an official goal aimed at reducing that waste.
Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency — along with
many private-sector and food bank partners — announced the first ever national target for food
waste.
"[We're] basically challenging the country to reduce food waste by 50 percent by the year 2030,"
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tells The Salt.
Currently, Vilsack says an estimated 133 billion pounds of food is wasted each year. And if that's hard
to fathom, picture this: "It's enough to fill the Sears Tower [technically now called the Willis Tower] 44
times," Vilsack says.
As for who's responsible? Well, pretty much everyone who eats.
We consumers let a lot of food wilt or go sour in our refrigerators. And we may toss out items when
they pass their sell-by dates — even though the food is still safe to consume.
On farms, there's a lot of waste...Food not quite up to cosmetic standards isn't harvested. Often
times, food also ends up in landfills because it won't stay fresh long enough to be shipped across the
country.
Restaurants and grocery stores generate a lot of waste, too. There are a lot of initiatives already
underway to address food waste.... Increasingly, grocery stores are buying and selling imperfect, or
ugly, produce....
Vilsack says food waste isn't just an economic issue — it also is a big contributor of methane, a
potent greenhouse gas that fuels climate change. Think about where most of it tossed: "Basically, it
ends up in landfills," Vilsack says. And it's the single greatest contributor to municipal landfills,
according to USDA.
Here's another way to understand the significance of food waste: Tossing out food wastes fossil fuels
used to grow and ship food....
For now, the national 50 percent waste reduction goal will be voluntary. But to meet it, Vilsack says,
many of the initiatives already underway can be scaled up. "Rather than pitch [food], let's figure out
how to redirect it," and salvage it, says Vilsack.
For instance, Americans need more education on how to shop and cook in ways that reduce the
losses in our own refrigerators.
And schools, institutions and local governments can do a lot more to cut back on, recover and recycle
food waste. In some states and cities, they're already required to....Seattle now fines homeowners for
not sorting their garbage. And Massachusetts has implemented a food waste ban for certain
institutions, with a handful of other states following suit....
Vilsack says the public awareness needed around food waste reminds him of another problem our
nation tackled back in the 1960s and 1970s: litter.
There was a time when people rolled down their windows and tossed trash on to highways. "It was
quite common when I was a kid," Vilsack says.
But now, this is not culturally acceptable. That's because there was a massive public education
campaign. School kids were told to tell their parents to stop littering. And, Vilsack says, it was
successful.
Now, he says, the goal is to "create a generation of Americans that are sensitive to food waste."
1. Define: private sector, fathom, cosmetic, initiatives, methane, greenhouse gas, municipal,
institutions, implemented, culturally
2. Who is declaring a national goal to reduce food waste? Why would they set a goal for
other people’s behavior--is this their responsibility? Why or why not?
3. Will the announcement of this goal have an impact on the amount of food people waste?
Explain.
4. Why might food be safe to consume after its sell-by dates? Why do consumers throw it
away anyway?
5. "Often times, food also ends up in landfills because it won’t stay fresh long enough to be
shipped across the country.” Is this wasting it? Why or why not?
6. What are the costs to consumers of wasting food? What costs would be involved in making
sure they never bought food that would go bad before they ate it?
7. “Americans need more education on how to shop and cook…” Do you agree? Why or why
not?
8. How do consumers pay for the food they waste and the landfill space they use? How do
the resources used to transport food affect the price of food?
9. What does education mean in this context? What is the difference between an effort to
improve people’s knowledge or understanding and a campaign to change their actions?
EXTRA CREDIT (5 points)
Give me a suggestion on how to get people to stop wasting food. What type of food do
you/your family waste the most? What can you do to eliminate this waste?